The United Nations International Children Emergency Fund, UNICEF, has called on global leaders to commit to doing more to fulfill Children’s rights, as the world marked International World Children’s Day.
The call came with a global request asking individuals to sign a global online petition asking for ‘children to be put back on the
agenda.
According to UNICEF, there is need to build a world where every child is in school, safe from harm and can fulfill their potential.
The UNICEF’s representative in Nigeria, Mohammed Fall said a lot has been achieved but there is still much to do to ensure that Nigerian children benefit from advances in child rights, as he said that too many children are being left behind, at the moment.
He said that Nigeria has the world’s highest number of out-of-school children, and one of the highest rates of maternal, child and infant
mortality.
On immunization, he said more than four million children are unimmunized and tens of millions of Nigerians still do not have access
to clean water and proper sanitation, which he said puts children’s health at risk, saying that diseases like pneumonia, diarrhea, and
malaria combined with underlying malnutrition are responsible for most
of the deaths among infants and children in Nigeria.
Mr Fall said that Nigeria’s burden of stunted growth among children is the second highest in the world, with sixteen-point-five million
affected, and the burden of severe acute malnutrition is high, with an estimated two-point-six million children severely acutely
malnourished.
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